Conrad woke to the smell of the garbage can rotting in his apartment.

The television switched on by itself.

“Please, if anyone is out there, I’m being held captive at the pier!” The woman’s voice was frantic, sounding out from the television. “Please help…” The screen went black. He was pensive because the pier was far away from where he lived; maybe he could check if the subway was still working. He grabbed the garbage and headed out.

Conrad threw the trash into the bin in front of the apartments, and the stench wafted through his nose as he closed the lid. He headed down the streets, past the red eerie glow of the hospital and the timepiece clock on the town hall. The prison sat silently; he expected to hear rattling chains. The fog was dense, but he entered the subway tunnels.

In the subway tunnels, he waited; the lights gave off a white, fluorescent glow, and papers littered the ground. The graffiti he knew well was on the subway’s tiled walls. There was a subway car with an open door, and he entered it without question as the number matched the subway route to the pier. The ride felt short; just the hum of the subway car riding the rails continued to echo. The tunnel lights should’ve been on, but instead, it was pitch black outside the train car.

When he arrived, an upbeat tone chimed, and a happy woman on an intercom said, “Watch your step.” He walked up the subway exit’s stairs and entered the foggy streets, the sun barely piercing the fog. He was standing on the beach, fog covering everything. He stood in the sand with his hands in his pockets and looked out into the water. The water made a swish sound as it rocked back and forth; the smell of the ocean was something good for his soul.

Suddenly, a smell of putrid sewage filled his nostrils. “Ugh!” He put his forearm to his nose. Then a woman screamed, but also the sound of carnival music. The fog opened to his left, and there was the Ferris wheel lighting up through the fog. He headed in the direction of the music from the carnival, still covering his nose until he went nose blind to the stench of ocean sewage.

When he got to the front of the carnival on the pier, it was as if the fog was not in the carnival area as heavily as outside. At the front entrance, overflowing trash cans buzzed with flies. The smell was overpowering, and he tried to block his nose but retched first. He walked through the carnival gates to find the place lit up and with unusually happy carnival music. A tarot card was on the ground, and he picked it up.

“Huh?” He murmured.

It was “The Sun” card, but the sun was orange, looking unhappy with a large nose. The grassy plains were brown, and there were overflowing garbage cans on the plains. The sun was looking over, and it had a lot of stink lines with tiny dots that were supposed to be flies. He stared at it for a moment, thinking how weird the card looked. He put it in his back pocket and started his way into the carnival. As he passed by the stalls, the sounds of whispering could be heard. The thin fog allowed him to see more. The stalls had bloody or rotten-looking prizes. As he passed a food vendor, he saw loads of earthworms on rotting candy apples, and even maggots and flies were feasting on the remains of the food in the stalls. He retched.

He heard a woman’s scream coming from the large circus tent, the sound of the rollercoaster going on its own, and the haunting carnival music was hard to hear over. However, when he went to the opening of the circus tent, it had a locked door; beside it was a box filled with tarantulas. A glint of metal was seen at the bottom of the box while tarantulas scrambled to escape.

“That must be the key… just my luck… not much of a spider man.” He winced.

He reached in and felt the hair of the tarantulas on his right hand pressing up against him. Do these things bite? he thought to himself. “Argh! They do!” He jumped back as some tarantulas had made it onto the sleeve of his coat. “Fuck sakes anyway!” He plunged his hand into the box and grabbed the key. He fell backward into a large, standing open ashtray on the other side, knocking it over. The smell of cigarette butts filled his nose while he threw off the tarantulas that stuck to him. He got up and brushed himself off from the tarantulas on his coat. He spat, trying to get the taste of the cigarette butts out of his mouth. He unlocked the door to the circus tent and went in.

When he entered the circus tent, there was a man in a magician’s costume behind a cage fence. A woman screamed for help, stuck inside a magician’s box. The smell of stale candy, animal feces, and burnt popcorn assaulted his nose.

“What’re you doing?!” Conrad shouted, covering his nose. “Let her go!”

The man in the magician costume ignored him and pulled out a handsaw. He smirked at him and placed the hand saw on top of the middle of the box. The woman screamed for help, her feet kicking on the other side of the box, her head poking out the other end. He watched through the cage and started shaking the fence, trying to elicit a reaction or stop the magician. The magician started sawing the woman in half, the woman let out a gurgling death rattle, and blood streaked down her cheeks. Blood spurted out from the saw’s path and hit Conrad on the cheek, making him flinch. The magician let out a laugh. Applause erupted from the empty stands. The cage opened. As he stepped forward to check on the woman, a trapdoor opened, and he dropped down.

It was pitch black, but something moved on his skin. There was a small light; the light grew brighter as he went forward. He forced his way through a pit of earthworms mixed with maggots while horseflies buzzed about him. The feel of them wriggling on his skin made him freak out. The place was filling with worms.

“Ouch!” Conrad exclaimed as a horsefly bit his head. He shivered at the sensation of the worms on his clothes. “Holy crap!” He cried out as a bucket of worms fell onto his head. “Fuck!” He ran towards the light. When he finally reached the light, it was a door; he opened it, and worms and maggots spilled out onto the floor in front of him.

He walked out and let out a sigh of relief. His pulse was erratic, and his heartbeat hammered in his head. The transition from a dark pit of worms to a light-filled area blinded him. When he looked around, he saw the back of the circus tent and a concrete staircase leading back to the carnival. When he got to the top of the stairs, there was a murder of crows that cawed and flew off. They had been feasting on the remains of the magician who was from the tent. The magician smelled like rotting flesh, like he’d been out here for days in the hot sun, and the crows had feasted well. He covered his nose and returned to the carnival to see if he could get back into the circus tent; maybe someone in there was alive.

He was still breathing heavily, and his heartbeat was erratic; the smell of the rotting garbage bins he passed did not help either. He inhaled the smell of the overflowing garbage bins, making him retch. A ride turned on in the distance; the fog had cleared a path towards the horse carousel. He passed the stands of rotting food, buzzing with flies. When he got closer to the carousel, he noticed that while it spun and played haunting music, the toy horses were flinching. The horses were bleeding everywhere, and a bar impaled their backs as the carousel spun.

“Oh…!” He stared at the bloody horses. His vision narrowed. His eyes closed as his heartbeat increased. Am I really that scared? he thought before he finally fell to the ground. He blacked out to the sound of carnival music and a group of people laughing.